Possession #47 - TV Cabinet

O.K. so today we added another possession to our house...a big one. We asked our good friend Steve to make us an oak TV cabinet and he delivered it tonight (thanks Steve!). I must confess that I love things made out of actual wood with real craftsmanship. If I won the lottery I'd fill the house with such home-crafted pieces. For me, I don't mind spending money on something that's beautiful, will outlast our pressed-wood-like-products, and has a connection to friends. Support your local crafts people, artists, and assorted creative folks!

Possession #46 - Lighthouse knick-knack

Henning Mankell's long-suffering police officer, Detective Wallander, once said something about how we never quite leave our past behind...it's drug along with us for the rest of our lives. Sometimes that past comes in the form of little knick-knacks that occasionally serve as memory joggers. This one is of a lighthouse in Erie, Pennsylvania, a town where we once lived for awhile. It's amazing how such a little thing can evoke persons, conversations, and landscapes so vividly and instantaneously. Of course, for similar reasons, we sometimes ditch the knick-knack hoping to leave certain memories behind us. But I don't think memories leave with the trash.

On a side note...don't miss this funny little animated short from Pixar called, "Knick Knack."

Possession #45 - KitchenAid Mixer

I love my KitchenAid mixer. It's sturdy, efficient, and makes really good cookie dough. I don't know how people (mostly women) managed in the kitchen before modern appliances. I take that back...I do know how...I just shake my head in disbelief. I'm from a generation that mostly thinks making a cake from scratch involves a box of Betty Crocker mix.

The first patent for an electric mixer was given to Rufus W Eastman in 1885. It could be powered by either electricity or water. Now, my kitchen is brimming with specialty devices that make my life easier (in theory). We have all probably wondered, though, whether or not convenience and efficiency is really worth as much as we once thought it was. Certainly our most cherished relationships are rarely convenient or efficient, yet we'd never trade them for a brand new mixer. For now, however, I'll keep the mixer. My mom gave it to us and it's stayin'.

Possession #44 - Older TV

OK...so I just finished watching the 2nd half of the Castle thriller. I better fess up to the third TV. We'll call it the "older" TV. This is the one that used to be our "big" TV, but got moved to the basement as the gamer TV, but got replaced by the new "old" TV when we got the flatscreen. Now it's in the middle of the basement awaiting relocation to an as of yet unnamed location (salvation army). Do you think it was any different when the old story teller was keeping the audience entertained around the campfire? Did the new story teller unseat the old one? Did they compete for peppier stories? Did the audience sometimes wander off into the woods because of boredom? Just wondering...

Possession #43 - VHS Tapes

Tonight is Oscar Night and so it's only fitting that I bring out all my old VHS tapes. Being ancient artifacts of digital days gone by, I don't even own a machine that can play these tapes. And yet, I still have them...hmmmm. As perhaps you can see, most of these movies got us through our parenting years. I'm a movieaholic and I'm not ashamed of trying to pass an appreciation of movies along to my children. I suppose our collection of tapes and DVDs isn't as extensive as many (mostly thanks to netflix).

I got in a long discussion with my wife tonight about whether or not actors deserve multi-million-dollar salaries. Me: yes. She: no. She's probably right. Art is a wonderful thing and movies can profoundly affect us. But has Spiderman really made my world that much better?

Possession #42 - Old TV

Tonight we're giving in to the addiction that has captured so many..."Downton Abbey." However, we're only on episode 3, season 1...so we've got a lot of catching up to do. By the way, if you haven't seen "Downton Arby's" you really must! So, to honor our night of viewing, I'm featuring our old television tonight. It's been relegated to the basement where it's disconnected from the cable and only useful for video games. However, the game meister is off at school and so the TV only comes to life when he comes home. It took our collective muscles and wills to get this old tube TV into the basement and as far as I'm concerned, it can stay there for the next family who owns the house.

I suppose that one way in which our family has successfully slowed down the onslaught of stuff is that we've never owned more than one television that was actually hooked up to cable. I don't want a television in the bedroom and certainly not in the room where we eat. I suppose that my future self might look back on this and smile knowingly, but at the moment it's where I stand. How often do we really stem the tide of stuff? Not often enough.

Possession #41 - Snow Blower

Here's how we sometimes acquire new things... Spouse: "I'd really like you to consider getting a snow blower." Me: "Absolutely not! I am perfectly capable of shoveling snow. I don't need some lazy man's device." Spouse: "But you know...with your bad back and all..." Me: "No! It's out of the question!" Then, a couple weeks later I go and buy a snow blower...with electric start. And on days like today...I really love my wife!

It's all well and good in theory to separate your life into "wants" and "needs." But, the dividing line gets a bit fuzzy in the midst of life. Does the absence of children in the house and my bad back warrant a snow blower and a lawn mower with self-propelled wheels? Yes...maybe...absolutely not...all of the above? How are we supposed to make judgments on our lifestyle when rules aren't very clear? As they say, "The devil is in the details."

Possession #40 - Media Wiring

Although there are many wonderful things that modern technology has done for us, simplification is not always its best selling point. As my devices have become more amazing, the wiring that connects them all has become maddeningly complex. Figuring our my remotes is challenging, but wiring up my TV to my DVD player, cable receiver, sound bar and woofer is...well...crazy. And of course there isn't just one kind of wire. Each device has its own type: fire wire, coaxial, fiber-optic, and photon torpedo wire. I must have a total of 200 miles of wiring between my various devices as well as a few more miles in a box I keep in the closet for wires that I can't quite figure out their purpose. Connections between our devices are just as complex as the connections between people. Good luck.

Possession #39 - China

We picked out our china pattern after we got engaged; about a dozen settings of wonderful - beautiful china. But mostly it gathers dust. Is this because we're afraid to break it? I don't know why...we'd never miss it. Because we think it looks too nice for informal gatherings? More likely. What's the matter? You can eat on it and it looks good. We should use it! Instead, it mostly languishes in the lower reaches of the china cabinet. China cabinet? Yes, we'll get to that later.

This suggests a whole category of stuff - stuff that we value highly but rarely if ever use. The silver salt and pepper shakers? My table saw? My tuxedo jacket (that's another story)? What gives these things their value? It clearly isn't their usefulness. Perhaps they are some of the gear that I feel I must have but don't really need. Perhaps neither of us want to the be the one to suggest their imminent demise.

My wife pulled out the china for our valentines dinner the other night. We definitely have to do that more often.

Possession #38 - Kitchen Tools

Every job worth doing is worth buying another tool to help accomplish it. That adage is true about the kitchen as well as the workshop. We have our share of kitchen tools rattling around the drawer. So much so that it often fails to open when one or more tool gets jammed inside. I could probably graph all my kitchen tools on two axis. The "useful" to "unuseful" continuum. And the "cumbersome" to "handy" continuum. Unfortunately I have way too many tools that lie in the unuseful and cumbersome quadrant. My favorite? Probably the spatula...only one of them, though. I have 5 spatulas, and only one of them lies in the useful and handy quadrant. I'm hungry...I gotta go.

Possession #37 - Tony Hillerman Mystery Novels

We have pretty much all the mystery novels of Tony Hillerman. I only just found out that he died back in 2008 (I guess that's why there haven't been any new books lately). Most of his books involve two Navajo Tribal Police officers, Lieut. Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee. Hillerman not only wrote good mysteries, but he wrote in order to instill in his readers a respect for Indian culture. The way he wove the Navajo myths and traditions into the real world challenges of police officers have become for me a model for how ancient story can come alive in our everyday lives.

Not only are these novels great, but the landscape they evoke was powerful enough to compel our entire family to take a vacation there. Hillerman shows how what some may call barren and dry, for others can be full of life and beauty. Enough blubbering on my part...just go and read one of the books!

Possession #36 - CD's

The smaller things are, the more they can accumulate unnoticed. This is a good stack of my CD's...but it's not all of them. I know there's some in the car. Some next to my clock radio. Some ensconced in my kids' rooms. Some at work. Some M.I.A. One nice thing about big old albums was that their heft made you aware of their accumulation every time you tried to move them. CD's can move almost effortlessly. Almost...but not as easily as the newest albums I have stored on my ipod and...well, I'm not quite sure where they are. I've heard they're on the "cloud" but I haven't quite gotten used to that idea yet. I think the purpose of the cloud is to make it possible to fill your life with stuff minus the stuff-ness of it.

The up side of cloud storage is that it has a bit of mystery attached to it...and I like mystery. One of our spiritual ancestors talked about God existing in a "Cloud of Unknowing." Is God in the cloud along with my Bruce Springsteen album that I thought I downloaded but can't find it on any of my devices. Maybe when everything's stored in the cloud, our homes will start to downsize...but I doubt it. It's a mystery.

Possession #35 - Bowling Ball

This is actually my dad's bowling ball which I inherited when he wasn't able to wield it any longer. My own ball is much less impressive. Robert Putnam wrote a book called, "Bowling Alone" which used bowling allies as an archetypal kind of place in which communities of people are brought together in ways that positively affect the culture. Growing up, the bowling alley was one of two possible places for a Saturday afternoon of indoor fun, the other being the roller rink. I always came home smelling like smoke and being reminded that bowling looks easier in theory than it is in practice.

A bowling ball used to be one of those objects that served as an informal standard of measurement. "Is it heavier than a bowling ball?" one might ask. Or, "His head is smoother than a bowling ball (I am not...I repeat, not, referring to my own head)." The bowling ball, however, seems to be losing it's position as a standard of measurement along with the bread box and a blue moon.

When objects become common enough, they can take on iconic and metaphoric duties within the culture. For obvious reasons, these objects are constantly coming into and out of common use (How much longer will anyone say that they have to "dial" someone up?). Meanwhile, I'm holding on to the bowling balls in the house. Who knows when they'll be pressed into service.

Possession #34 - Guitars

OK...so I've added a link to a blog entitled, "How Much is Enough?" And Part II of the same blog by David Lose. That's only to ease the guilt from owning so many guitars. So, actually, I've noticed that I only buy one about every 20 years. One of them I got when I was in high school. I bought a couple of them 15 years later (one of those two I've never really used...and it was used). 20 years later, I've acquired another one. And then there's the one that was given to me...so OK that's quite a few.

Is that how it goes with a lot of stuff. It's not as if we start out intending to amass a pile of stuff. It just sort of comes willy nilly. Coupled with an aversion to getting rid of anything, we soon find ourselves wanting to rent another storage unit because our home has become overloaded. Nevertheless...I have a hard time feeling too guilty about too many guitars. Too many John Denver albums...maybe. But guitars...nope. I never felt bad about buying another book for our children. I might have cringed when purchasing the third game system. But books? Nope. Never a twinge of guilt. There are some things that just seem justified in their accumulation. Books and guitars. Yup.

Possession #33 - Wine Glasses

Happy Valentine's Day! Some of our stuff is inextricably tied to a relationship with another person. These wine glasses, from a quaint craft shop, were the most brilliant Anniversary gifts I ever gave to my wife. We both love them. They're beautiful and remind us of...well...us! For our valentine's dinner we put out our china (we hardly ever use it) and lit candles (must be a special night) and put on a Diane Schuur CD (one of our first dates). The juxtaposition of all these objects mean something. Objects themselves may be fairly innocuous, but when paired with the right occasion and the right location, they become powerful bearers of mood and meaning. Why else are many of our homes littered with stuff that seems so strange to outsiders...things which we could hardly live without.

What meaning-filled objects did you pull out for Valentines? What evokes powerful winds of emotion for you?

Possession #32 - Pastor's Travel Communion Set

I was trying to think of something appropriate for Ash Wednesday and I thought of one of my old travel communion sets. I never did like these things. The little thin metal plate is too insubstantial. The bottle of juice leaks all over the place when you try to pour from it. It seems too miserly for so generous a meal. A few years ago I made my own travel set with a nice large pottery plate and large enough cups for people with arthritis to grip. The local high school shop class made me the tray as a student project. It feels more appropriate to the occasion.

Stuff matters. Or maybe I should say, matter matters. It's hard to express eternal concepts through cheap flimsy physical objects. Substantial stuff is needed to convey a substantive message. Maybe that's why I've never been a big fan of plastic crosses or disposable communion cups. The stuff that matters should be no more disposal than the objects that represent them.

"We came from dust and to dust we will return." That's what I said today as I smeared some ashes on everyone's forehead. We are not disposable. We're made of substantial stuff - earth. That's pretty cool stuff.

Possession #31 - Pots and Pans

On this day before Ash Wednesday - the day before the beginning of Lent - we sometimes call it, "Fat Tuesday"...what better way to celebrate than a picture of my pots and pans (some of them). Food is such an ephemeral possession and yet so necessary. It's no wonder that it's so easy to collect it in excess. Perhaps we all need a reminder of how tricky a thing eating was when we were just a wee lad. You all need to watch this video and reminisce. Tomorrow let's all fast!

Possession #30 - Bar Bells

This is the time of year when the exercise industry makes a killing on half-hearted New Years resolutions. I used to own a Nordic Track until I didn't. These bar bells have stayed on in the house because they don't take up much room and my son started using them when I hurt my shoulder and didn't pick them up again. Only about half of Americans say that they exercise at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes. Given that low bar, I guess I exercise more than the average American but still probably put more mileage on the couch than on the treadmill at the Y.

Motivation is a complicated formula that I can't always crack. Even the Apostle Paul mentioned being unable to do the things he wanted to do. It seems to be true that exercise "stuff" doesn't increase the chances that you'll actually use it. Exercise doesn't really take any stuff at all...just a willing body. I hope you have a healthy and happy year!

Possession #29 - Albums

In honor of the Grammys tonight, I thought I ought to drag some of my old albums out of the wooden crate they've been in for the last few decades (some of you may be unfamiliar with what an album is...please ask someone old). I came of age in the 70's and early 80's and mostly turned to the mushy sounds of the times - Jim Croce, John Denver, Carpenters, America, James Taylor, and yes, even Barry Manilow (I stayed up til midnight to record his live double album on a cassette [if you don't know what a cassette is...please ask someone old]). Showing you these old albums I know will remove any "cool cred" that I have had...especially perhaps the Muppet Movie album (the best!) and my Manhattan Transfer albums (I have every one).

We must have over a hundred albums molding in the basement. Too heavy to haul away. Too precious to let go of. Too many memories....oooohhh the memories! I know I'm going to roll my eyes at the Grammys!

Possession #28 - Pens and Pencils

I'm convinced that pencils and pens breed at night while cohabitating inside their coffee mug containers. There can be no other explanation for the sheer number of writing utensils given the fact that I mostly write on a computer. This pile I'm sure only represents a small percentage of the actual amount of ink and graphite in my home. I gathered these by the most cursory of glances in the most obvious gathering spots. But, like dust bunnies, these things accumulate under couch cushions, between the fridge and countertop, under the bed, and at the bottom of bags and stuck inside books.

Actually, I've always been a bit touchy about my pens and pencils. I freely discriminate between ones that feel good to the touch and make a good mark, and those which are habitually ignored and unused. I have my favorites and am almost unable to write without them.

In order to give some respect to these useful tools, I give you a website that you absolutely must visit: David Rees' "Artisanal Pencil Sharpening" business is truly the most wonderful thing I've seen this week! Let me know if you pay him $35 to get your pencil sharpened from a true crafts-person.

Possession #27 - Cable Reciever

Ahhhhh!!! I hate cable TV. 6,000 channels of nothing...nothing...nothing. And yet, O.K. I pay up every month. Why? So I can catch the next installment of American Idol (was there ever a more obvious metaphor?). Early in our marriage we would cancel our cable about every other year. We would get tired of paying so much for so little and we'd pull the plug. But then, the Olympics would come on...or the U.S. Open...or Twin Peaks...and we would grudgingly hook ourselves back into the system. Yes, we are junkies. It's pitiful and a bit depressing. Perhaps it says something true about some segment of the things we own - we justify them by complaining about them. By moaning and pouring some ashes on our heads we distance ourselves ever so slightly from the things that we feel a bit of unacknowledged guilt over. Anyway, just a theory...I gotta go...Idol's on.

Possession #26 - Remotes

Following up on a request from an avid viewer of this blog, here are my remotes. It takes an intricate medley of commands from three separate remotes to operate my television. A fourth if I want to use the DVD player. A quick survey of the rest of the house reveals that I also have a remote for my radio (which has to have a remote since it comes with no controls on the radio itself and now I live in fear of losing all control over the device since my dog ate the second remote). Also, amazingly, I have a remote for my bed which is not intended to be used remotely at all since I have to activate it while I am...lying on the bed.

There are about 335 million TV remotes in our country, which works out to about 3 per home. Novelist Saul Bellow noticed how the remote tends to promote frequent changes to the television screen and declared that the device, “makes mental mincemeat of us.” Read more about the history of this frustrating yet couldn't-live-without-it possession in this wonderful New York Times article.

Possession #25 - Stained Glass Cross

Isn't it interesting how some of our stuff looks good on the surface but on second (or third) thought seems rather odd. Take, for instance, this really nice cross that our good friend Dan made for us. We like it and have it hanging in a place of prominence in one of our front windows. But when you think about it...a cross? Really? An ancient torture device is really quite an odd thing to put in a window. Or what about parents who decorate their child's room with a Noah's Ark theme. Really? Does a depiction of a cataclysmic tragedy of "Biblical proportions" really make such a good choice for room decor? How about the collection of German beer steins we have when neither of us really drink much beer? How much thought do we give to the contents of our house or does it all just kind of accumulate on its own? Frank Lloyd Wright once said, "Many people are little more than the janitors of their possessions." Maybe I need to get a mop and start cleaning.

Possession #24 - Blue Ray Player

Since I'm writing this after watching a DVD, I guess I'd better post my blue ray player. I've always loved movies and I'm sure if it wasn't for the wonder of Netflix, I'd have a huge pile of DVD's that I'd have to take a picture of. Unfortunately, all my old movies are stored on VHS which I can't even play anymore (luckily I never ventured into Betamax territory). It seems to be the nature of things that as soon as you acquire a critical mass of it, it becomes obsolete and you have to start all over again (wait til I start organizing all my old LP's downstairs). "Planned Obsolescence" is the term I once heard to describe this situation that keeps us constantly updating everything we own. Maybe 1 Corinthians 13 is correct when it says, "nothing lasts." ...except faith, hope and love. And you know what the best one is.

Possession #23 - Poetry Books

If I listed each of my books one book at a time, this could go on for several years. So today I'm starting with a pile of poetry books from my house (another one from my office will show up later). A near perfect day off for me is going to my favorite book store, buying a book of poetry then reading it at the coffee shop down the street. For me, poetry points to all the stuff that you sense but can't ever quite get your finger on - in other words...mystery. Life without mystery would seem to me to be incredibly flat and boring. I don't claim to be able to understand poems any better than anyone else and therefore I like the comment poet Billy Collins once said about desiring to tie some poems up to a chair and torturing the meaning out of them.

I'll include one from Jane Hirshfield's collection of poems called, "After. This one is called, "Vilnius."

For a long time / I keep the guidebooks out on the table. / In the morning, drinking coffee, I see the spines: / St. Petersburg, Vilnius, Vienna. / Choices pondered but not finally taken. / Behind them - sometimes behind thick fog - the mountain. / If you lived higher up on the mountain, / I find myself thinking, what you would see is / more of everything else, but not the mountain.

Go read some poetry today.

Possession #22 - Chip Bowl

It just seems appropriate to include my chip bowl on this Super Bowl Sunday. I love ceramics and I found this one at an arts festival just to add a little aesthetic zest to our guacamole and tortillas. The statistics gods say that Americans will eat 80 million avocados today (that's a lot a guac!). We'll eat 1.23 billion chicken wings which is enough to fill a football field 1,083,333 times (though I wouldn't want to clean the stadium). 11 million pounds of chips. Dominoes will deliver 11 million slices of pizza. Super Bowl Sunday is second only to Thanksgiving as a national eating holiday. Bon Appetit!

Possession #21 - Sound Bar

My old "tube" television weighed approximately 5,000 pounds. I know this, since that's about how much I'm going to have to pay my chiropractor to fix my back after moving it out of its old spot in the living room. My new flat screen television weighs less than a feather and is about as thick as a piece of Dove candy (not that I know anything about that). They get it so thin by removing all the excess stuff inside it...like speakers! So I have to buy more "stuff" to go with my new television, like this "sound bar" here. You either need a PhD or the kid at Best Buy to help you figure out how to make everything work which usually involves hitting random buttons on all 25 remote controls I have scattered on the coffee table where I used to have coffee cups.

"Parents complain about the quality of the shows but don't prevent their children from gluing themselves to the boob tube" (David Owen).

Possession #20 - Television

O.K. so you knew this list of possessions had to include a television...or two...or ten. Actually, television is one category in which our home is rather modest. The average home in the U.S. has more televisions than people in it. We only have one (well...only one that actually works). Unfortunately that one television shrinks every year. I know that because the one I bought 8 years ago shrunk so much that I could hardly see the screen any more and I had to buy a new one. Then that one also shrunk so this year we had to get another one. Each time we buy a slightly bigger one so that it takes longer to shrink. So far that strategy isn't working very well.

I read somewhere that television advertisers spent about 45 billion dollars last year which means that the relative modesty with which I perceive my television habits is a tad overrated. Like everyone else, I assume that I'm immune to the mind-sucking dangers of the airways. But even I have to admit, as I started to watch the 200th season of American Idol the other night, that I might have already lost a few too many brain cells.